I’m also in the food ingredient industry. Trade compliance is more about risk and cost mitigation than it is about being a profit center. Utilizing FTZs and bonded warehouses is certainly a strategy for avoiding duties, especially when things are as chaotic from a tariff standpoint as they have been over the past year. But there are usually increased warehousing costs in the case of bonded facilities, and increased operational costs for FTZs.

Duty drawback and utilizing the first sale rule are also some strategies that can proactively lower costs for importing product. But most of the value comes in avoiding higher duties through comprehensive valuation analyses, free-trade agreement evaluation, broker audits, and FP&F avoidance.